Exploring female sexuality and female agency in Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland (1748)
 

 Active female sexuality always represents female agency: that is why it is feared. 

A discussion

Gender “norms” dictated the eighteenth-century female as modest, demure and virtuous. Active female sexuality transgresses these social boundaries, proving women capable of traits outside those prescribed by a patriarchal society, and can therefore be seen as a symbol of strong female agency. This essay argues that although female sexuality can represent female agency, in Fanny Hill it is contained within a male fantasy, rendered tame and unthreatening for male readers.